


Five Times Reid Was Invisible (And One Time He Wasn't)

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: 5+1 Things, Friendship, Gen, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Secret Relationship, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-24
Updated: 2012-06-24
Packaged: 2017-11-08 11:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/442647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Reid went unseen by his teammates... and one time there was evidence of his actions. </p><p> </p><p>This is a work of fanfiction and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. This was created as a personal entertainment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Time - Hotch

**Author's Note:**

> This is a 5+1 meme fic - my first - which accounts for the style being sort of all over the place. Apologies... it was harder to do than I anticipated. Also, I made each situation its own chapter because some scenes are more than just a few paragraphs.
> 
> I'm working on the brevity thing, I swear.

“Who the hell is that?” The nurse peered through the window of the private hospital room with her standard look of aggravation. This patient was supposed to be isolated. 

“Another patient.” The guard stationed at the doorway offered. “He wandered down from the fifth floor, apparently.

“What sorta cop training school did you go to?” The nurse crossed her arms over her substantial bosom and gave the rent-a-cop a withering glare. “He’s supposed to be I-SO-LATED. The Feds will be all over us if you just start letting _anyone_ in to see him. Someone’s trying to kill him, don’t ya know?”

The cop jerked his thumb towards the door and gave the nurse her own glare back to her. “Not to worry. _That guy’s_ FBI as well.”

The nurse looked through the window again.

“He’s the agent who came in this afternoon? The one who got shot in the knee?”

“Yep.” The cop nodded and yawned. “Bad day to be a feeb, I guess. Still, I’d rather be shot than stabbed repeatedly.”

“I bet if you asked either of them right now, they’d probably prefer _anything_ to being shot or stabbed.” The nurse spoke to the cop as if explaining something to a painfully slow child. “They might even be happy to be a fool like you, officer.”

Without waiting for an answer, the nurse bustled into the room. Her patient was still unconscious as he had been since returning from surgery. She hadn’t expected anything more, certainly not for several hours at least. She wondered what the skinny, younger man sitting uncomfortably by his bedside expected.

“You can’t be here.” She said. “It’s after visiting hours.”

“I work with him and I’m not visiting.” The younger man jumped a little and then winced. He pointed to the leg that was bound up in bandages and a torturous looking metal brace. “I’m a patient.”

“Then you need to get back to your own room.”

“I’m not leaving him.” He answered calmly. “You’re welcome to try forcing me but that might not go over well with your Chief of Staff given that I’m a federal agent as well as being injured.”

“I don’t do the forcing, hon. We have security for that.” The nurse made a quick check of the machines attached to her patient and recorded the stats on his chart. “You know that he’s not gonna wake up for several hours. Perhaps not until tomorrow even…”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s not going to be alone while he’s here, whether he’s aware of it or not.”

The man looked over at the bedridden patient and his face suddenly aged ten years. The sharp lines of his face and the dark circles under his eyes brought out the nurse’s professional impulses: this man was also in pain.

“He’s going to recover.” She said softly.

The younger man stared down her platitude. “It’s my job to protect him. Its who we are to each other.”

She held his eyes for a long time and then sighed. “You’re so young.”

With a rubbery squeak, she turned on her heel and headed back the way she came.

“I’m going to forget that I saw you here, and I’m also not gonna get bent out of shape by the gun that you’re hiding under your gown. Because you’re FBI, and its your job to protect him.”

She paused, arching an eyebrow to ensure that they understood one another. The man swallowed hard and nodded, rearranging his hospital gown over the exposed butt of a .38 Special.

“See you in an hour.”

“No you won’t.” He said. “I’m not here, remember?”


	2. Second Time - Garcia

The Chicago case was hard on him, what with the sighting of his cousin who everyone thought was dead and that creepy underground slavery stuff. He was a good man but even good men can be idiots. She had said some tough things to him, and even though he needed to hear them, she was tied up in knots over it. He was the sugar in her coffee and it killed her to be angry with him.

When the courier envelope arrived at her tech den with a first class plane ticket and a note that simply said ‘He needs to see your face’, she assumed that J.J. was in a hyperactive fix-it phase. But when she arrived at the Chicago P.D. station house, J.J. looked at her like she had just materialized from a beam of light. Could it have been Hotch, maybe? No, he was far too embroiled in the Strauss shitstorm that this case would bring down on him. And the others? Well, bless her babies, but they all seemed too preoccupied to think beyond the present moment.

She found him sitting at an empty desk staring into space and squeezed his shoulder. When Morgan saw Garcia all of the strength drained out of him and he held onto her as if she was life itself. He whispered an apology into her shoulder and she began her work of rebuilding his fortress around him. Later, when he asked how she got to Chicago, the answer was obvious; one of them was always thinking beyond the moment. She typed one word into her phone and then sent the text. Across the station house, Reid’s phone beeped…


	3. Third Time - Morgan

He squeezed the trigger and the gun bucked in his hands. He cringed but kept going until the clip was empty. Afterwards, he squinted through his glasses and the haze of cordite at the target in the distance.

“Did I hit it?”

“Once.” The range master mumbled and made a notation on his clipboard. “Out of ten shots.”

“Reid, were your eyes closed?” Morgan stared at the target in disbelief. “I’m pretty sure that even a blind man could’ve hit it more than once at this distance.”

“It’s loud.” Reid whined. “And the kick is hard to control.”

“Your .38 has a stronger kick than this standard 9mm.” Morgan huffed. “We’ve been practicing for weeks… I _know_ that you haven’t forgotten what I told you.”

“Aim. Front sight. Breathe. Squeeze.”

“Well then, what happened, man?”

“I don’t know. I got nervous.”

“Reid…” Morgan was getting exasperated.

The range master interrupted. “I’m sorry agents, but I can’t pass Dr. Reid here with this score. Your right-to-carry will be suspended until further notice. You can make an appointment for another testing date at the front office, Doctor.”

Reid ducked his head and nodded, defeated. Morgan made an angry noise in the back of his throat.

“I gotta bail before I say something that I’ll regret. Now I know why Hotch asked me to take over this detail…”

Morgan removed his protective goggles and tossed them as he stomped back into the Quantico training center. Reid and the range master watched him go in awkward silence. After several long moments the range master turned back to him.

“He’s gone, Dr. Reid.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes. Are you ready?”

Reid nodded and reloaded his Glock 9mm, chambering the first round. He removed his glasses and held them out to the range master. 

“Would you be kind enough to hold onto these for me?”

The range master accepted them and Reid replaced them with the standard firing range protective eyewear instead. He took a measured breath and then fired ten shots in rapid, precise succession: five to the torso and five to the head. The groupings were so tight that the target looked to have two large tears rather than multiple punctures. Reid reloaded and did the same thing at the mid-range target, and then at the far target. Afterwards, he ejected the spent magazine and removed his goggles, nodding in approval.

“Perfect. Just like always.” The range master smirked, shook his head and made tick marks down the far side of his clipboard. When he was done, he handed Reid’s glasses back to him. “See you in six months, Doctor. Maybe bring a new trainer next time? You must be getting tired of snowing Agent Morgan…”

“Oh, it never really gets old.” Reid smiled gleefully and donned his thick-rimmed glasses.

The range master just chuckled and continued shaking his head; he’d never understand why the best shot in the FBI liked to play at being a wuss.


	4. Fourth Time - J.J.

If the bags under J.J.’s eyes got any bigger they’d qualify as luggage and it was making Will more exhausted just looking at them. Raising kids was hard work - much harder than he thought. His momma had always made it look easy. They were both too stubborn to give up their jobs and J.J. was too bullheaded to ask for help, so when _he_ received the anonymous email, he decided not to tell her and act as if he was much brighter than they both knew that he was.

But perhaps putting Henry to sleep with an audio book of the Feinman lectures on physics stretched credulity a little. When she called him on it, he talked about how a baby’s brain processed information while sleeping and that the subject matter was so dull that it’d put anyone to sleep. And it was working. Why look a gift horse in the mouth? ‘Sides, maybe they could grow themselves a little genius like her friend Reid. Her mouth quirked a little and then she smiled. She said that she didn’t think it worked that way and kissed him. As she led him from the nursery for what he hoped would be their first good night’s sleep in six months, he wondered what Reid’s momma did when he was little and couldn’t sleep.


	5. Fifth Time - Rossi

Rossi was from a different generation where men were tough, women were mysterious, and you didn’t mess with another man’s booze or his car. He was also a joker and enjoyed razzing his teammates almost to the point of cruelty. It was his twisted way of showing affection. Everyone understood and accepted it, but sometimes it got out of control. If you didn’t push back against him, sometimes he’d bulldoze right over you and few knew that better than Reid. Reid didn’t retaliate, he didn’t complain - most of the time he accepted being the butt of people’s jokes with just a forced grin and a shrug. When Rossi had Reid’s classic (if battered) Volkswagen towed from the bureau airstrip to a local junkyard while away on a case, Reid gave him the standard thin smile even as Hotch intervened and called a moratorium on practical joking. Rossi smiled and apologized, saying that Reid’s car was safe and would be returned to him by morning.

Reid’s only response was a quiet. “I’m an engineer, you know.”

So, a month later when Rossi showed up in the bullpen forty minutes late, shoeless and spitting invective, everyone thought of Reid. Except Reid had been in New Mexico for a week working a case.

“Dave, what happened to your shoes?” Hotch looked pointedly at Rossi’s socks.

“They’re in my car. They’re GLUED to my car!”

“I’m sorry? Glued?”

“Yeah! The right one is glued to the gas and the left is glued to the brake. I stepped on them and immediately got stuck. $1200 Spanish, hand tooled leather! I’m gonna get that Cal Tech brat…”

Hotch held up his hands and gave Rossi a dark look. “Reid’s been gone a week, Dave. He couldn’t have done this. You drove yourself to work yesterday and everything was fine…”

“I drove _the Jaguar_ to work yesterday.” Rossi fumed. “This morning I went to start it up and discovered that the engine had been replaced overnight. I had to take the Mercedes instead. The kid _glued_ my Mercedes and raped my Jag!”

By now the whole bullpen was quiet, held in rapt attention by the unfolding of a genius level prank. 

“What was the Jag’s engine replaced with?” Prentiss spoke up.

“My ride-around lawn mower!”

The bullpen tried to stifle a collective guffaw as they all began to shift their eyes and shuffle papers. An angry Rossi could be dangerous. Hotch was performing a Herculean task of keeping a straight face throughout the conversation.

“Dave, you know that he didn’t do it. It’s just not possible.”

“Hotch, he screwed with my babies!”

“You screwed with his first.” Hotch pointed and allowed a smile to crack his façade for the first time. “And I defy you to figure out how he did it. I think that you’d better give him a wide berth from now on.”

Rossi’s face flamed as he growled and stormed off to his office slamming the door behind him for good measure. Prentiss let out a low whistle that signaled for everyone to let out the reactions that they had been holding back. Hotch raised his hands slowly.

“All right, people. Let’s get back to work. And… stay out of his way for a while.” He waved towards Rossi’s office.

Hotch returned to his office and grabbed his cell phone. He turned his chair so that his back was facing the bullpen.

_Dad’s mad about the car._

It was several minutes before his text was returned.

_Never mess with a man’s ride.  
Everything will be fine by tomorrow. Promise.  
Be back from NM on Tues._

Hotch shook his head and went back to his paperwork. “Never mess with an engineer.”


	6. ...And One Time Reid Was Found Out

Reid flipped through the morning mail as he walked towards his parked car. Amidst the bills, job solicitations, and registered junk mail there was an envelope that he recognized immediately. The paper was thick and expensive, the handwriting spidery and familiar. He smiled as he tore it open, placing the rest of the unopened mail on the roof of his car. The smile faded and then changed completely as he examined the sole content of the envelope: a document outlining the results of a blood analysis. He stuffed the letter into his satchel and fumbled for his car keys. The forgotten mail on the car roof sailed into the morning sky as he gunned the old car to life and merged into rush hour traffic.

******

Reid entered Hotch’s office with his go bag in hand and slid the piece of paper across the older man’s desk. Hotch read the page slowly and realized that he’d only known a part of the man before him, and that now, after seven years, he’d finally earned the right to see all of him. It hit him how much he’d miss Reid, how much he wished that he could’ve put all of the pieces together sooner. It was a rare thing to surprise a profiler. Hotch stood and uncharacteristically pulled Reid in for a hug. He quietly gave the younger man some advice that he wished he’d received the moment that his whole life changed.

Reid pulled away and smiled, his eyes rimmed with red. He said that he might not come back, as if Hotch didn’t know that already. Hotch just nodded and asked that Reid drop him a note when they’d made their plans - he’d handle the rest from there. The gesture brought Reid’s hand to his face to hide how touched he was, and Hotch shooed him out of his office before either of their composures were compromised further. Hotch watched as Reid raced to the elevators and as the rest of the bullpen turned to him with questions. He closed his office door and sat back at his desk staring at the document that Reid left behind: 

Blood work analysis for E. Prentiss, care of London Interpol field office.   
hGC level: 1034 mlU/ml. All other results nominal. Patient is positive for pregnancy.


End file.
